Why is sound doctrine essential for evangelism and missions?
Sound doctrine is essential for evangelism and missions because…
- …missions and evangelism primarily consist of sharing the gospel. If we don’t preserve the true gospel message as it has been preached since the beginning of the Christian church, we’re no longer doing evangelism or missions. If we don’t preserve the biblical gospel, we’ve actually become false teachers, spreading destructive ideas that will ruin people’s souls rather than save them (2 Pet. 2:1-3).
- …sound doctrine is essential for evangelism and missions because without sound doctrine we have no way to preserve the gospel message. In order to faithfully do missions and evangelism we not only need to preach the gospel, we need to preserve it. And in order to preserve the gospel we need to faithfully maintain every doctrine that relates to the gospel: the doctrines of the Trinity, the incarnation, the attributes of God, substitutionary atonement, justification by faith alone, the inerrancy and authority of Scripture, and many more. For instance, if we don’t understand Scripture as the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17; Tit. 1:2), then over time we will lose our grip on the gospel. How will we know the gospel is true if we don’t trust the Scriptures that proclaim it? How will we be able to defend the gospel against error if we think that the Bible itself contains error?
- …sound doctrine alone enables us to proclaim the gospel (which is doctrine) and preserve the gospel against false teaching.
